ned breathlessly. Yes, it was
her voice raised distinctly.

"You!" he heard her cry. "You! You are Tai-K'an! My father has told me
of you!"

"Ye-es, my lil ladee--you are lil ladee of the Engleesh mandarin!" he
heard the reply--the reply of a Chinaman. "I now take my vengeance for
my own child as I have each year promised. Give me the pretty jewels.
You wanted to sell them, eh? But you will give them to me! I watched
you take them from the table while they were all at the party. Your
father never thought that Tai-K'an followed you on your country
journey, eh?"

Otley heard the words faintly through the shutters and stood rooted to
the spot.

Peggy was the thief? She had wanted to sell them and had been
entrapped. In an instant he realized her position.

He heard her voice raised first in faint protest, and then she
implored the Chinaman to release her.

"Ah, no!" cried the cruel triumphant Oriental. "Tai-K'an warned your
father that he would have his revenge. His daughter was to him as much
as you are to your own father the mandarin," and he laughed that
short, grating laugh of the Chinaman, which caused Otley to clench his
fists.

For a few seconds he hesitated as to how he should act. Then, quick as
his feet could carry him, he dashed back into the Commercial Road,
where he enlisted the aid of a constable.

Together they hurried back to the house after the young man had made a
brief statement that a white girl had been entrapped.

At first they were denied admittance, but when the constable demanded
that the door should be opened, the bars were drawn and they entered
the wretched den.

Peggy was naturally terrified until she heard her lover's voice, and a
few seconds later the pair were locked once more in each other's arms,
but the gems of Abdul Hamid were nowhere to be found. Indeed, neither
Peggy nor Charlie dared mention the stolen jewels, so the Chinaman
kept them.

"Do you wish to charge this Chink?" asked the constable of the girl.
"If so, I'll take him along to the station at once."

But at Charlie's suggestion she would prefer no charge, and after
profuse thanks to the policeman, they found a taxi and drove back at
once to Bennett Street.

On the way Peggy sobbed as she confessed to the theft; how, in
desperation, she had stolen those wonderful jewels from Mrs.
Bainbridge's room in the hope of raising sufficient money to pay
Charlie's defalcations, and how she had two days later received a